Tom,

Do you, as MM posted, believe the blood of Jesus is not required to atone for sins of ignorance if they make it to judgment unknown and unconfessed?

Do you, as MM also posted, maintain sins of ignorance require blood atonement only if the sinner becomes aware of them and confesses them before he dies?

MM, let me make clear my position. If you look at Leviticus and Numbers where it speaks of the atonement for sins of ignorance, you will see that that offering is made *after* the person becomes aware that they had sinned ignorantly. That is, the sinner commits a sin in ignorance, becomes aware, and then confesses the sin and makes the offering.

If you think about what the atonement, or "at-one-ment," is all about, it makes perfect sense. If we are doing something harmful to a relationship, but don't know it, there nothing that can be done to heal the wounds caused by the harmful action, until that harmful action becomes known. After it becomes known, then the wound can be healed.

It's not a matter of applying rules to satisfy legal requirements. The plan of salvation is not about legal loopholes. It's about restoring relationships. Sin destroys our relationship with God. The atonement is the means by which God restores the relationship which sin has harmed.

The atonement is effect by God's making known His true character to us in Jesus Christ. This is what brings about our healing.

The earth was dark through misapprehension of God. That the gloomy shadows might be lightened, that the world might be brought back to God, Satan's deceptive power was to be broken. This could not be done by force. The exercise of force is contrary to the principles of God's government; He desires only the service of love; and love cannot be commanded; it cannot be won by force or authority. Only by love is love awakened. To know God is to love Him; His character must be manifested in contrast to the character of Satan. This work only one Being in all the universe could do. Only He who knew the height and depth of the love of God could make it known. Upon the world's dark night the Sun of Righteousness must rise, "with healing in His wings." Mal. 4:2. (DA 22)

Tom, I agree with the SOP that Jesus made manifest the loving kingdom and character of the Godhead. No doubt about it. Jesus never has used, nor ever will use, force to compel people to obey or disobey. But this insight in no way means Jesus never has, nor ever will, punish and destroy sinners with fire.

Regarding atoning for sins of ignorance that make it to judgment unknown and unconfessed: it is clear to me that the reason Jesus applies the benefits of His blood to atone for them is because the law requires death for sin.

According to the law, sin is sin whether known or unknown, and the law demands that God 1) punish sinners according to their sinfulness, and then 2) destroy them. I realize you disagree with this insight.

Also, regarding defective traits of character: no one can violate one of the last six commandments without at least initially feeling guilty of wrongdoing. This is true of believers and unbelievers alike.

Everyone is born with an instinctive knowledge of what is morally right and wrong as outlined in the last six commandments. Thus, no one can cultivate a defective trait of characer which violates one of the last six commandments without realizing it is morally wrong.

Daryl, more specifically the question is - Will Jesus forgive sins of ignorance without applying the benefits of His blood that make it to judgment unknown and unconfessed?

The quote I was posting when the forum was hacked:

"The nearer the Christian lives to God, the more he advances in divine illumination of mind. He has more distinct sense of his own littleness, discerns his defects of character, and sees his duty in the light in which God presents it. The more closely he draws to Jesus, the more he has a near and clear sense of his own defects which had before escaped his notice, and he sees the necessity of humbling himself under the mighty hand of God. If lifted up it will not be because he lifts and exalts himself, but because the Lord exalts him. Having his eye fixed upon the purity and perfection of Jesus Christ, and acknowledging and obeying God in all his ways, he is not blinded to his own failures and imperfections. When his deportment in the eyes of men is unblamable and irreprovable, God reads the intents and purposes of the heart." {TDG 16.2}

The question as to whether God will forgive sins performed in ignorance is wonderfully revealed by Jesus Christ: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

If we think of the atonement in terms of "at-one-ment," as dealing with loving relationships between individuals, rather than as trying to solve legal problems, the whole think is as easy as pie to understand.

If you are doing something in ignorance which is harming our relaitonship, I need to be made aware of what I'm doing in order for our relationship to be healed. It's just that simple. Until I'm aware of what I'm doing, you have the option of forgiving me of the harmful thing I'm doing, or to hold it against me in spite of my ignorance. We have ample evidence that God will never hold any sin against anyone where the sin is committed in ingnorance, providing the person didn't deliberately avoid evidence that would make known the harmful act.

MM, you seem to have the idea that Christ can apply the benfits of His blood in a way which doesn't in any way impact the sinner. Please present some evidence for this idea.

Every example I found in the Spirit of Prophecy which speaks of benefits of the atonement involve the sinner repenting and exercising faith in Christ.

Rosangela, the context of the quote you posted makes it clear that Sister White is addressing health retreat leaders who were guilty of wilfully twisting the testimonies to serve their distorted notions. They were not ignorant of their wrongdoing. Their defects were clearly revealed to them and they chose to disregard the counsel of God.

20MR 120-122 St. Helena Rural Health Retreat Not To Be Closed; Divine Counsel To Be

I say in regard to the Health Retreat that it has had a hard time. The curse of God is not on the Crystal Springs institution, but the Lord is displeased with those who have followed their own course of action and not the ways of the Lord, and then have uttered their denouncement of the institution. If Crystal Springs is to be the furnace to try the character to detect the dross and worthless metal, as it has done, and to reveal the gold, let it live, for this is an essential work, to test the metal of men to see how self has been mingled with their plans and course of action.

Yet you flattered yourself, and talked to others of your great desire to help the cause of God and to do a great and good work. You will help the cause of God if you can do it and follow out your own plans and after your own order, to please yourself, but you see no light in following any other plan than that which you desire. You have the matter plainly stated in what I have written to you from time to time. Please read these testimonies. You cannot be clear before God until you make these things right by going over the ground at the Health Retreat and making a different showing and manifesting a different spirit than when you were there before.

But this decided statement is passed over, and you gather up my words and interpret them to favor the closing of the Health Retreat. Now, my words were all opposed to this. I had the statement of your plans, and I say these plans will not carry. You presented to yourself formidable objections to the Retreat's being where it is now located. You talked of the heavy indebtedness upon the institution, and I could but call to mind the report brought by the unfaithful spies. You need the mold of Christ, then good material will be brought into your character building.

The Lord bears long with men, and when they manifest a determination to follow their own judgments, the Lord allows them to do so. I have been made to see the weakness and ignorance of fallen man, even in his best estate. As man goes deeper and deeper in his studies, improving in learning the will and ways of the Lord, he sees more of his own ignorance, thus revealing that he has made decided progress from the beginning.

The nearer the Christian lives to God, the more he advances in divine illumination of mind. He has more distinct sense of his own littleness, discerns his defects of character, and sees his duty in the light in which God presents it. The more closely he draws to Jesus, the more he has a near and clear sense of his own defects which had before escaped his notice, and he sees the necessity of humbling himself under the mighty hand of God. If lifted up it will not be because he lifts and exalts himself, but because the Lord exalts him. Having his eyes fixed upon the purity and perfection of Christ Jesus, and acknowledging and obeying God in all his ways, he is not blinded to his own failures and imperfections. When his deportment in the eyes of men is unblamable and irreprovable, God reads the intents and purposes of the heart.

Christian humility is a wonderful grace--the very antidote to the apostasy of Satan, which has unholy ambition and every delusion that he can frame. The grace of humility through Christ Jesus will make an imperfect man discern his imperfections and make him meet for the inheritance of the saints, where God is all and in all.

I know from the light given me of God that there should be no closing up of the Health Retreat. Should the perplexities in which the Retreat is now involved result in its closing up, Satan would triumph. If those who have hurt the institution by their unwise movements, by their blindness of perception, by their own spirit and narrow action, would come to the right position and all work to remove the stigma they have brought upon it by their own plans, the institution would live and prosper. But when Satan makes a determined effort to assault this instrumentality of God, there are those who ought to know better who unite with the powers of darkness to weaken and discourage and uproot it. But God has said, "Let it live," and it will live if the people of the Lord will do their duty.

Has not the Lord reproved your course, Dr. M.? Why do you maintain your own way nevertheless? Never, never be guilty of yielding to a deceitful, false tongue. Both of you have entrusted capabilities that may be improved greatly and be made efficacious under the discipline of God. Then His righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will be your rereward. "Without Me," says Christ, "ye can do nothing." [bIf you set at naught His counsel, then you are in danger. You may both be a blessing to the Health Retreat if you bring to it a right spirit and take hold of it as God's work, and not to receive the adulation of man and turn the attention of the people to yourselves to bind them to you, but fasten them to Jesus.

TE: MM, you seem to have the idea that Christ can apply the benfits of His blood in a way which doesn't in any way impact the sinner. Please present some evidence for this idea.

MM: The investigative judgment of the dead is all about Jesus doing things that do not affect the sinner while alive. Applying the benefits of His blood in cases of unknown and unconfessed sins of ignorance pertains only to those who are dead.

Hebrews
9:22 And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission.